On July 2, five new Fellows took their posts, and after a two-day orientation in Madison jumped right into their work, providing service and working to improve health in their placement communities and across the state. Thanks to Rashonda Jones - Fellow blogmaster - for taking the baton from former Fellow Kat Grande, so that current and past Fellows, Preceptors, faculty, staff and other partners can share a window onto the important work in public health going on in Wisconsin and beyond, and to maintain their links to this network of colleagues and friends.

Here’s just a quick glimpse of what the new (2012-2014) Fellows are up to:

Sarah Geiger, placed with the Bureau of Environmental and Occupational Health at the Division of Public Health and with the Milwaukee Health Department is analyzing a range of environmental data including data on great lakes fish, well water and childhood lead exposures in Milwaukee.

Christina Hanna, placed with the HIV/AIDS program at the Division of Public Health is working on a program to use social networks to increase testing for HIV and improve referral to treatment for those testing positive.

Carlyn Hood, placed with the Chronic Disease Prevention and Cancer Control program and Health First Wisconsin, is assessing chronic disease programmatic focus on health disparities, helping to coordinate efforts on the state chronic disease burden report, and is researching food system policy and its impact on obesity.

Erica LeCounte, placed with the Family and Community Health division at the Milwaukee Health Department and the Center for Urban Population Health is conducting data analysis and program evaluation related to improving birth outcomes in Milwaukee.